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Seven Questions to Ask When Dealing with a Troubled Project

Introduction

I am frequently being asked the following question in my consulting and training and training engagements:

We have a troubled project at our organization. What is the starting point when dealing with such ventures? What questions do we have to seek the answers for in order to rectify the situation?

Question #1: Why is this project failing?

In my opinion this is the most important question to ask. Before we move further in his analysis of the failed or troubled project we need to establish whether the failure should be attributed to the project portfolio management or project management root causes.

If we establish that - even if finished on-time and on-budget - the project would most likely not add any value to the organization (domain of portfolio management), why should we waste time and resources on putting it back on the rails? In other words, if determined that the project was a bad idea to begin with (e.g. construction of a new airport that no airline intended to use )we should probably either cancel it outright or go back to the drawing board and, if possible, change the design of the final product.

Question #2: Where did we fail on the project portfolio management side of things?

If we managed to establish that the failure was on the project portfolio management end of the spectrum, then the next step should be dedicated to find out where exactly our shortcomings were. Depending on the type of the organization the answers to this question could vary quite considerably.

For example, we may discover that the project did not fit any of the company's strategies, was not feasible financially or not attractive enough from the market standpoint. In addition we may discover that the organization did not possess enough in-house knowledge to implement the project or did not assign enough resources to it at all.

Question #3: Where did we fail on the project management aspects?

If after analyzing the responses to Q1 and Q2 we discover that everything is fine from the project portfolio management perspective, then we can focus on the potential project management weaknesses. In other words we agreed that the project has been a good idea overall, but the delivery failed.